Sweeping election law bill passes key NC House committee

RALEIGH — A sweeping bill to revamp North Carolina’s election laws passed a key state House committee Wednesday morning.

The 37-page bill would make changes to general election administration, voter registration, how elections are conducted and campaign finance laws. It passed the House Rules Committee on Wednesday morning, typically a final stop before a vote among the full chamber. 

The committee vote was 14-9 and at least one Republican member — Rep. Tricia Cotham, who switched her party affiliation from Democrat while in office in 2023 — voted against it. The bill would significantly lengthen the amount of time before party-switchers could run for office under their new affiliation.

The committee adopted additional amendments to the bill, marking at least the sixth different version of the legislation that was originally filed in April 2025.

Among the changes in the bill: 

• State Board of Elections and county board members would be barred from supporting or opposing candidates and encouraging or influencing voter turnout. 
• People would have to belong to a political party for at least a year, up from 90 days, in order to run for office with that party designation. 
• Political appointees to election boards would be paid more. 
• Elections in all 100 counties would be audited over a six-year period by the state auditor.
• The exemption for reporting campaign finance contributions would increase making fewer contributions, loans and expenditures public.
• So-called “never residents” would be removed from the definition of a covered voter, which refers to voters who are allowed to vote despite residing overseas at the time of an election.

After at least one protestor stood up, committee chairman John Bell had all members of the public removed from the hearing. Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, said he worked with several Democrats to change the bill and make it “more palatable to more members of the House.”

“We may not have gotten to ‘yes’ votes with everybody, but hopefully they will be less enthusiastically no,” Blackwell said.

While some Democrats thanked Blackwell for his work on the legislation, they expressed concern about the many changes or proposed changes to election laws over the years.

“Our elections in North Carolina deserve some normalcy and some level of predictability,” said Rep. Amos Quick, D-Guilford. “These constant changes are confusing to us as legislators, so certainly confusing to the general public.”

Senate leader Phil Berger didn’t endorse the measure when asked about it Tuesday, citing the many iterations of the bill.  

“I’m going to withhold judgement on that bill until it gets over here because it seems that the expectation of what’s going to happen with that bill is subject to change moment by moment,” Berger told reporters.

When asked to clarify, he said: “I’m not sure what the House wants to do with that bill ultimately and, until I have a little bit more clarity on that, I just don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense for me to get too deeply involved in what might happen with that bill.”